


We were wrecks before we crashed into each other

by actionreaction



Category: Re-Animator (Movies)
Genre: <-in that animals needed to die in order to be reanimated by herbert, Animal Death, Crawford is already dead in this and is Herbert's brother, Dan has ADHD i dont care i will just write things and say "this is real now. its real now., Dreams and Nightmares, Herbert is very touch-starved., M/M, Parental Death, Trans Herbert West
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:34:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22857880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actionreaction/pseuds/actionreaction
Summary: There’s a lot of things in his head all clamoring for his attention at once, all equally loudly, and it’s been like that forever. It’s not usually a problem, but sometimes…Sometimes.
Relationships: Daniel Cain/Herbert West
Comments: 6
Kudos: 45





	We were wrecks before we crashed into each other

It’s like this:  
Dan would come into the room. That much was obvious, because what would he do if he didn’t? He would always enter at an inopportune time, though, and he would say, “good timing” or, “wouldn’t want to miss this!” with a laugh as Herbert’s wrist deep in the stomach of some poor animal. He would put on his gloves, and he’d snap the wrist of the second one, like a doctor in a movie. And he would help.  
That, Herbert guesses, is the worst part. Dan’s always helping him with something.  
Dan would do incisions and injections at his beck and call, if Herbert’s shaking too much. Dan would do that, as a favor, and then suggest sleep or food as a remedy to the shakiness.  
And Herbert would trip on something, stumble, maybe, and he’d fall into Dan, who would catch him of course because he’s nice like that, and he’d drag him up to the bed and tell him to sleep.  
So, of course he did.  
Why didn’t he sleep more often? Herbert would make a fuss about if like a little kid every time, but when Dan takes off his gloves to carry him, and then takes off Herbert’s gloves too, it’s hard to decline. He’s _helpful_. Herbert puts on a t-shirt that he only has for when Dan makes him go to bed; a free one that Mr. Halsey had given him on his first day at Miskatonic.  
The sheets are clean, and even though it’s-here, Herbert would check the clock- 1:30 in the morning, he feels almost as if he were going to bed in the middle of the day. Still, he’ll begrudgingly take a nap for a few hours. Maybe, if he’s defiant, he’ll read a book instead of going to sleep, but he always finishes books fast so he ends up figuring, hey- nothing better to do. And he’ll sleep.  
His dreams would be unpleasant at best, with a lot of blood and sometimes flashbacks to bad things happening to people. Dr. Gruber makes a lot of appearances. His parents. His brother, sometimes. He knows that he technically only caused one of those deaths. In his brother’s case, he hadn’t even heard about it until he read about it in the newspaper the next morning. His parent’s deaths were the result of a gas leak and subsequent fire in his house while he and his brother, Crawford, were at school, and it caused Herbert’s passion for curing death to become an obsession- all he could think about, dream about, the only thing he could study. And then, the death of his brother left him alone. 

In his dreams, Crawford was the most supportive of his desire to eliminate death- he wasn’t without his quirks himself, Herbert recalled. He died young, and the obituary he read didn’t mention how except for a brief mention of apoplexy. They didn’t even specify which kind. So, the way Crawford usually died in his dreams was him slumping over, and within seconds he was gone. In his nightmares, Crawford _stayed dead._ It would be like, Herbert couldn’t find his reagent, or Herbert’s arms were too weak to turn him over, or something tore Crawford’s body away from him before he even got the chance. Or, he’d give the body what should have been an adequate dose of reagent and it would spasm and go limp as before, or it wouldn’t react at all, and he’d be forced to up the dosage and his brother would turn into a shambling creature that he’d have to kill all over again.  
His parents’ deaths were worse because he’d _seen_ the burnt husk of what used to be his house first hand, and he’d dream that he was his father, and he’d be sitting in his chair, reading, as his mother sat on the sofa asleep. And he would absently pull out his pipe, look over at his mother, and strike a match…

And then he would wake up, of course, with a shout, and Dan would be there, shaking his shoulder and asking him his _what’s wrong?_ s and telling him his _it’s okays.  
-Which one was it this time?  
The one with the fire._  
And he would sit up, and put his hands in his hair and dig the heels of his hands into his eyes to get the image out.  
_-Jesus, Herbert._  
But it wasn’t pity in his voice, it would always be in a tone of camaraderie, like _I’m glad to know you’re not as undaunted by everything as you seem_. An unexpected display of vulnerability, in his shorts and ratty shirt, tears in his eyes (but not on his face, which was important), staring at the bruises and cuts on his arms and legs. Grime.  
_-Take a shower.  
Okay._  
Herbert wouldn’t usually say yes to that. But he’s heartbroken and filthy and lonely and so tired, he wishes sometimes that someone would climb into his body and control him from the inside. So he doesn’t complain when he’s following Dan’s instructions. There’s a lot of things in his head all clamoring for his attention at once, all equally loudly, and it’s been like that forever. It’s not usually a problem, but sometimes…  
Sometimes.  
He takes the shower, and he feels better.  
He uses Dan’s shampoo, the kind that he got at the “healthy” grocery store, that smells like sandalwood but isn’t too much. He uses the nice soap. He pays a lot of attention to his wrists, and then his knuckles, and then the tips of his fingers. Is he going crazy, or are they somehow permanently stained coppery red?  
There’s two towels, and he can tell that Dan used one of them to dry himself off recently. The other one looks clean. Did Dan clean it with the rest of his laundry? Or did he wash it just now? It’s soft, and he hugs it around his shoulders. There’s been a choked feeling in his throat for the last half hour. He tries to cough it out, like it’s a piece of bone or bread or something. It forces itself around, and his cough sounds like a pathetic cry from a wounded animal.  
He steps out of the bathroom, and he gets dressed. As an afterthought, he goes back into the bathroom to brush his teeth. He looks at himself in the mirror.  
When he was younger, he’d made a point to never look at himself. But now- he looks at his jaw, his shoulders- it’s not so bad. It’s all okay. 

After what always feels like a century, Herbert would walk down to the kitchen, hair still damp. And Dan will have fixed him something for breakfast. And he would sit down, and Dan would put a plate of hot food in front of him. The lump in his throat would be unbearable at this point, the question of _why? Why the hell would he do all this?_ physically burning, hurting him. He wouldn’t realize it, but he’d be crying at this point, but a passive sort of cry that didn’t really require any sort of engagement from him. The crying part only lasts a minute or two.  
He’d eat all of it, every time. Dan wasn’t always the best chef, but Herbert didn’t always eat well either.  
_-Herbert?_ Dan would say, watching him to see his reaction.  
_Yes?  
-I think you should stop using the reagent on yourself._  
And here Herbert would normally say _no_ , with a great deal of finality, as if Dan didn’t bring it up at every single one of the few meals they shared together. But sometimes even a good script needs revising.  
_You’re right. I know you’re right._  
There’d be a bit where they wouldn’t say anything.  
_I’d need your help with it, though. I can listen to you better than I can listen to myself._  
Maybe not that last part. Is that too obvious? Is he too much?  
But he’d say it, because he’s got to be honest with Dan, because if not him, then who? Himself?

He’d turned it down earlier, because of what?  
Because it was difficult.  
Reanimation was easy. It was all measurements and calculations, it was nothing but a memorization of anatomy textbooks.  
He couldn’t memorize himself like that. Before this morning, he hadn’t even looked at himself in years.  
But when Dan tells him…  
_-Herbert, I want you to see a doctor who isn’t you or me.  
Okay._  
He can do that. And he will. Dan’s good at laying things out in easier steps.  
_-It helps with my ADHD._ He’d said. He’s on medication for it, too. But he says that steps are the way to go if you aren’t. Maybe that’s just him, though.  
Step one is make the call. Step two is write down the date to remember it. Step three is to actually go there. Step four is to let the doctor listen to the air whoosh in and out of your lungs. Step five is to ask him for what you want in plain terms, and tell him that you’ve been to all the therapists in Arkham, and they all think that he should be prescribed testosterone. And that’s it. Step six, he supposes, would be to go back home. 

The first month was rough. Having to get used to a sleep schedule again was hard. Eating was hard. But he did it. Dan helped him with his experiments so they would still be productive. He stood under a shower at least twice a week. And then three times a week. His nightmares were vivid still. They got less loud, though. He had no idea how they could be that loud in the first place- he hated to admit it, but he’d forgotten what Crawford sounded like a few months after his death. His last few letters were written from prison, which was alarming, but made Herbert wonder if they had any recordings of him.  
On a whim, he rifles through his old jackets for his wallet. He used to keep the newspaper clipping with his photo on his person at all times, as if aspiring to a goal. He _would_ bring him back.  
Herbert doesn’t think he would be able to now, of course. He’s gone. Whatever lies in that grave is a mass of bones and worms and decaying flesh- but it’s not Crawford anymore. And that’s fine. The realization that that’s fine leaves him tingly all over, like this death that’s haunted him forever is suddenly forgotten, deemed irrelevant, something else off his chest that he’s needed gone. But, as stated earlier. Revisions are good. You have to revise something to make it good. 

The nightmares don’t stop, though. But aside from those bad nights, nights are _good_. They’ll make a night of it, order takeout and watch movies, and after they’d reanimate a cat or something. Dan would say,  
_-Sorry for making you watch this._  
And Herbert would say, because honesty is everything,  
_It’s okay. I love you._  
He’d say it like a secret. Conveying secret information that he shouldn’t be, that he shouldn’t even know.  
And Dan would tense at the shoulders, and then relax. He’d tilt his head back ever so slightly, laugh languidly, like the action of laughing is what’s causing it.  
_-Fuck_.  
He’d sigh.  
_-I know that.  
But do you love me?  
-I mean, do you think I’d get expelled from my school, and stay up late reanimating shit, and do all your laundry if I didn’t love the hell out of you?_  
It makes Herbert tear up again. Of course.  
He puts his head on Dan’s shoulder. He smells like sandalwood. He’s warm, too.  
Herbert could make the case that it was love at first sight, but it was more like love that boils too hot too fast, and you’re stuck with this boiling love that you don’t know what to do with, so you sit there holding it forever.  
But that’s a bad metaphor for it now.  
Dan tangles his hands up in Herbert’s hair the way he likes. Little scritches.  
Something Herbert learned in the past few days: He likes physical contact. Not too much all at once, but now that he’s off reagent he’s a little less numb (seriously, the numbness is a problem- maybe his creations are so self-destructive because they can’t feel what they’re doing to themselves), and every time Dan kisses him or holds his hand he gets a rush off it. Maybe it’s because he’s been stupidly pining after this man for a little over a year now- maybe he feels like he earned it. But maybe it’s just the feeling that he’s got Dan, and Dan’s not going anywhere. 

It’s like this. And Herbert finds himself becoming increasingly okay with that.

**Author's Note:**

> This is just me shamelessly projecting all my shit onto herbert and dan in a fanfiction and hoping that it's even slightly understandable. Thank you for reading it. I am slorpn on tumblr if you want to talk to me :]


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